


Rhiannon and Randall

by Nagasha



Category: BomBARDed (Podcast)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Gen, Like, MOTA 2019, Randy deserves better, Rhiannon actually does care for Randy, a lot of it, but that makes it worse, of the platonic kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:14:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagasha/pseuds/Nagasha
Summary: Rhiannon was tasked with turning a young Randy Greentrees into a proper thief. Nobody asked her to turn him into a proper adult, although if she did maybe he wouldn't eat random rocks.





	Rhiannon and Randall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tech](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tech).

> This is for Reid from the BomBARDed discord! I hope you all like it.

Rhiannon was 16 when they pushed the sniveling brat at her, his face streaked with snot and tears. A ‘recently acquired treasure’, her superior called him, halfway between sincere and mocking. She just thought he looked like a dumpster trash baby.

He was useless, for the first few days she was in charge of training him. Always crying for his Mommy and Daddy as if they’d save him from this mess. At first, it was fun to remind him that he had nobody and nothing, but that just made him cry even more. Finally, she snapped. 

“You don’t get it, do you?” She picked him up by the foot and dangled him upside down, high enough that his big fat eyes met hers. “The Nowhere Man don’t keep useless things. If you don’t prove yourself, they will kill you. It doesn’t matter who you were, or how your parents loved you. All that matters now is that you do what I say, and maybe I can pound enough worth into you that they don’t tear out your little heart!”

The brat didn’t react for a few moments afterwards, and Rhiannon had a fleeting thought that maybe she broke him- as useless as he was, they gave him to her to fix up, and of course she’d be the one getting in trouble if she broke him.

Finally, he bit his lip and choked back a sob. “…okay.”

She was tempted to just drop him, but that might make him start crying again, and her hard work would be wasted. Instead, Rhiannon just lowered him down to the ground with a pat on the head. “Good. Now, what’s your name?”

He looked up at her, surprised. But she was 75% sure he won’t get himself killed in the next few days, and if she just kept calling him brat, the kid would start to think it was his name. Kids were dumb like that. “I’m… I’m Randy. Randy Green-“

She hit him across the face with her staff, sending the boy flying. It seemed like the most effective way to get across the most important lesson. After all, she didn’t get to keep her old name, why should he? “No, you’re not. You are whatever I make of you, got it?”

Lying in the dirt, he nodded and wiped his eyes. Rhiannon sat down in front of him, thinking. She didn’t want to use his old name, but he seemed too dumb to understand if she called him something cool like Razor or Regret.

“Randall,” he looked up at her. Good, that meant he’d actually respond to it and she won’t have to train it into him. “Get up. We have work to do.”

The brat- Randall- sat up slowly, still looking at her like she killed his puppy or something. Like he even had a puppy to kill. He was at least quietly miserable, which was an improvement. Maybe he’d survive through the next week after all.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Rhiannon kept expecting Randall to fail, to give up, or to die by falling off a cliff or something. But he kept beating her (admittedly low) expectations. Days turned to weeks turned to months, and annoyingly enough, Randall was growing on her.

Oh, he was still an obnoxious entitled brat, but at least now he can keep his mouth shut and follow instructions, which was more than she expected from him. More than some of the other underlings, too, because even though she proved herself time and time again, some of the morons didn’t respect her because she was underage. It didn’t matter that she’d been working as hard as she could to prove herself for ten years, all they saw was the little weakling that she used to be.

But Randall? Randall never saw her as anything but strong and worthy of respect. He looked up at her like his only savior and the cause of all his misery, and he wasn’t wrong about that. Randall was her responsibility, her minion, her little pet… he was just hers. He belonged to her, and Rhiannon took care of the things that were hers. 

Take the other recruits- they kept picking on him until she stepped in and stopped it. And now, they can’t pick on anybody anymore, especially not her little Randall. Nobody picks on her little Randall except for her.

The reluctant gratitude in his eyes was delicious, the way he curled up even as she helped him up with a firm grip. He feared her, but he needed her, and they both knew it. 

“Don’t worry, Randall,” she said with a smile that made him flinch. “I’ll never let anybody hurt you but me.”

Her promise was put to the test only a few weeks later, when her stupid clueless Randall tripped over such an obvious tripwire that he deserved to be punished for it. If it was on an actual mission, the punishment would be Randall being left behind to suffer all the punishments the ordinary, innocent people would think up. Instead, Randall was faced with her. 

He should be grateful, really. She fought tooth and nail to be the one to punish him- they thought she’d be soft on her little Randall. As if she cared about hurting him or making him sad. Rhiannon wasn’t weak, she was possessive- they gave him to her, and she was the only one allowed to touch him.

Of course, she had to prove she wasn’t going to take it easy on him, like they all expected. Anyway, pain is the best teacher. If she didn’t go as rough as she could on Randall, then he’d just do it again and again. Now, though? Now he knows better- he knows what Rhiannon will do to him if he fails.

If anything, she wasn’t hurting him- she was saving him from more pain later. He should be grateful, really. So, Rhiannon made him thank her as he was lying on the cold hard ground, blood pooling underneath him. And if he glared at her even as he showed his gratitude, well…

It didn’t bother her at all.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

As years went by, Rhiannon was proud to watch her little Randall grow- still little, of course, because he was just a halfling, half the size of her and obviously needing half the food- into something that was at least halfway competent. 

He was still his underling, but he had become more of a partner in crime than the nuisance he used to be, and she taught him accordingly. Rhiannon didn’t teach him all she knew- after all, why did he need to read when he had her to read for him? - but she taught him what he needed to know. Thieves Cant, lockpicking, spotting traps of both magical and mundane origins. How to avoid the anger of the other Nowhere Man just as much as she taught him to avoid the attention of guardsmen.   
Her little Randall learned quickly and used her lessons even quicker. Rhiannon was proud of him, even if she’d never tell him of it.

Of course, no matter how much knowledge she poured into that empty head, deep in her shriveled-up heart she knew it was only a matter of time before he fucked up to the point where she couldn’t save him.

The first clue that something was wrong was the missing stone- it was a newly retrieved treasure, stolen from somebody that didn’t deserve the magical power it contained. They were on the verge of unlocking the true potential of the gem when in between shifts, it just… vanished.

A wave of justified fury rolled over everyone- who would dare steal from thieves. Rhiannon wouldn’t admit her secondary concern- because who could steal from them? They guarded their secrets and stashes like they were a dragon’s horde, and this new haul was protected even further- for somebody to get through all their layers of security, they’d have to be a part of the Nowhere Man.

Rhiannon missed the second clue. Everybody was on edge after the theft, so she didn’t think about the way Randall’s behavior shifted- he became more sullen, ruthless and reckless and ready to lip off to the others. When he misbehaved, she smacked him around a bit- just to remind him who’s in charge and to watch his mouth- but he acted like he had no idea what he did, as if that would save him from her wrath.

It never did, but she assumed he was just being an angsty teenager and ignored it. He’d get over himself soon enough and be back to being her little Randall.  
The final clue was a blast to her face after one of those sessions. She didn’t even remember what he did, but he needed to be punished for the third time that week. 

What she did remember was Randall’s eyes glowing a sickening yellow green, blank of everything. 

She remembered him raising his hand, and a flash of light coming out of his fingertip. She remembered burning pain, and the side of her face melting away like she was made of wax. She remembered waking up feeling like her face was on fire, with Doctor-The-Patient saying they did all they could.

They told her what she missed after she spent three days in a coma after Randall went on a magic fueled rampage caused by stealing the incredibly rare, incredibly powerful gem and eating it. Rhiannon wants to disown him for that, if nothing else.

And obviously, he’s disowned. There’s no coming back, not from anything like this. She wasn’t the only one he hurt on his way out, and she wasn’t the one he hurt the most. It didn’t make seeing her scarred face or the empty cot by her bed any better, but it was something.

Rhiannon had regret trained out of her years ago, but her rage lived on. It wasn’t even about the pain, or the scar, because he proved himself the stronger fighter (even though he cheated magically), but… how dare he abandon her, after all she did for him?

He was nothing before he met her, and she built him into a rogue and a Nowhere Man. And never once did he show a sign of gratitude for any of it.   
Randall thought she was rough before all this? That she had hurt him so badly that he needed to get himself some payback? He hasn’t seen anything yet.

Rhiannon built him up from nothing, and now she was going to fucking tear him down.


End file.
